TheaterRats Take On KING O'NEIL Running 4/30-5/9 At The Medicine Show Theater

What happens when elementary schoolers get their hands on a classic English farce about a drunken Irishman in pre-revolutionary France? Find out as TheatreRats takes on one of theatre's first prominent playwright's most heralded works, Catherine Gore's KING O'NEIL. The show is helmed by the company's Artistic Director, Alexis M. Hadsall (Spike Heels, Agrippina, Romeo & Juliet). Charles Casano stage manages.

TheatreRats' production plays April 30-May 9, Thursday-Saturday at 8PM, Sunday at 7PM, with an additional matinee at 2PM on May 9th. All performances are at The Medicine Show Theatre, 549 W. 52nd St., 3rd floor, between 10th and 11th Avenues.

It isn't a far stretch to say that the plot of the 1835 King O'Neil is like that of a soap opera or an evening TV melodrama - and it isn't that dissimilar from the type of tales many children spin my friends as children. There's a man in love with a woman he cannot have; a step-mother out for her own well being; a loving father who is misled; a daughter forced to marry a man she doesn't love to save face; and so on and so forth. All of which led TheatreRats to ask: how might children (or at least actors in character as young children) recreate this play for their friends using a few props and their bursting imaginations?

"TheatreRats has chosen a different approach to King O'Neil," says director Alexis M. Hadsall. "Instead of a typical period piece in powdered wigs and needlessly restrictive clothing, we thought we'd let the children tell the story - dressing the characters plainly and giving them children's toys, so that the audience's imagination can run wild along with them."

Tickets are $18 and can be purchased online or at the door. For tickets, go to www.theatrerats.com. For more information, email reservations@theatrerats.com. For press/industry seats, email michael@theatrerats.com.

 

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